Expert Fitness Advice

The Fitness Rule You Must Follow

Every morning, my friends, assistant coaches, and interns work out in my training lab. Okay, it's actually just my garage gym, but everyone there has to follow this one rule: Do not criticize, condemn, or correct a training program until you have completed it yourself.

The rule originated years ago. I had just finished a very strict protein shake diet for 28 days. (Yeah, I wasn't fun to be around during that time.) When it was finally over, Alywn Cosgrove, C.S.C.S., owner of Results Fitness in Santa Clarita, California, told me, “Now that you've completed it, you can critique it.” Finish it, then fix it. The wisdom was so simple and sensible that I wondered why I had never followed it before.

So when I was recently asked to create a 10,000 kettlebell swing workout, I undertook the challenge myself. Twice. I learned the ideal way to undulate the reps so you don't lose count. I learned what low-volume strength movements are best to program between sets. I learned how much recovery time your body needs. I learned the optimal number of days it takes to finish the challenge. Twenty-thousand swings taught me a lot.

The day the workout was published, however, I received emails and comments with “better" ideas. People began "fixing" my program without doing a single swing. My response: Quit tweaking things to make a program better. For nearly every thing you want to do, someone else has probably done it. They've cleared that path before you, so why not follow it first? Who knows, maybe you'll learn something.

When I did the Soviet Squat in Six Weeks program (6 sets of 6 front squats with 80 percent of my max!), I walked to the bar and squatted. And squatted. And squatted. I joked that if my squat didn't improve after all of that squatting, I would fly to Russia and punch every Soviet I could find. But I followed the program, and my squats went through the roof.

This week in my training lab, nutritionist Marc Halpern and strength coach Mike Brown are doing an interesting 6-week training program that involves circuits and timed intervals every day. Outside of an equipment issue or two, they're following the program exactly. Currently, I'm doing a 21-day program created by another fitness professional, so I can intelligently comment on it in a few weeks. Sure, we keep journals, we take notes, we discuss options, and we monitor our progress, but we also stick to the plans as they are written.

Try it for yourself. Dive into a new program every so often and immerse yourself in it. Then, after you finish it, go ahead and critique it. Mine the gems, and then adapt and adopt them into your normal training. But, first, finish what you started.

Dan John has taught and coached for more than 30 years. As a coach, he's helped hundreds of athletes pack on double-digit pounds of rock-solid muscle. As an athlete, John broke the American record in the Weight Pentathlon. He is the author of several books, including Intervention.

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